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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28981578">corrupt you on the dance floor / take you home.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiaji/pseuds/Reiaji'>Reiaji</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Miraculous Ladybug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, Making Out, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat, They kiss in a Tsurugi-brand car. That's it. That's the fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 08:55:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,850</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28981578</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reiaji/pseuds/Reiaji</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nino and Adrien leave a party early.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Nino Lahiffe</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>corrupt you on the dance floor / take you home.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>In my head this is pre-OT4 and lovesquare is in its post-reveal pre-relationship stage, but this is a standalone one-shot. Might have an Alyanette second chapter, might not. Thanks to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/stylostique"> Lisa</a> for betaing!</p><p>Title from Never Look Away, by Vienna Teng.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nino doesn't belong in Adrien's sort of place, with Adrien's sort of people, in Adrien's sort of life.</p><p>In fairness, he’s known this since the beginning—ever since he was fourteen, visiting his house for the first time; and the vast, stony, black and white mansion had instantly made him feel as small as a speck of dirt. Ever since he was fifteen, calling Adrien up on a Saturday to ask if he wanted to come over and shoot zombies; only to learn that he was in London, attending the royal wedding, a personal guest of the king and queen.</p><p>Ever since they were seventeen, and Nino had planned the dumb sort of date that teenagers went on in movies—the dumb sort of date that he thought Adrien would <em> like. </em>  They'd gone to a bistro and Nino had paid. They'd gone to a cinema and made out in the back of the theatre, and it had all felt shiny and beautiful and new until he'd woken up to find reporters outside his house.</p><p>For the umpteenth time, he reminds himself—</p><p>
  <em> —you’ve known this since the beginning. </em>
</p><p>"Oh, my dear," says the graying lady in front of them.  The overhead lights glint off her bangles as she hugs Adrien, gingerly, and pats him on the back. "I was so sorry to hear about your mother. We were friends in university—she was such a star.”</p><p>"Thank you," says Adrien, for the hundredth time that night. The woman casts about, deigns to notice Nino, and offers her hand for a perfunctory sort of shake.</p><p>“You must be Monsieur Lahiffe. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”</p><p>“Nino,” says Nino. “And you are—”</p><p>But she’s already skittered away, like a mouse in the glare of a spotlight. Nino swallows his annoyance.</p><p>Usually, he entertains himself at these events by eating tiny cakes at the snack table, or by texting Alya for dirt on the glamorous people around them. Now he can't do even that. In the two months since Hawkmoth’s defeat, the media has cooled to a steady simmer. But still, there’s a glitter that’s settled over them—a shininess that won't rub off.</p><p>Everywhere Adrien goes, people turn to watch him, seeking him out like gold, the glint of greed in their eyes.</p><p>“How are you doing?” he whispers. When he steps up to Adrien and puts his hand on his shoulder, there's tension coiled at the base of his neck.</p><p>“It’s okay,” says Adrien. “We knew it would be like this.”</p><p><em> We—</em>because his problems are Nino's problems, also. He moves his hand to Adrien’s back and lets it rest there, between his shoulder blades. </p><p>“You wanna get out of here?”</p><p>Adrien’s face doesn’t so much as flicker, but Nino can see him taking stock: how long they’ve been here, how long they’ve yet to go; the people they have and haven’t spoken with; the paparazzi circling the gates.</p><p>Finally, he turns towards him, letting Nino draw him in with the hand that rests at the small of his back.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I think I do.”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Sometimes—a <em> lot </em>of the time—Nino wishes he was braver.</p><p>Like Alya, who’s always been fearless to a fault. Or Marinette, who never shies from confrontation. He’s been thinking about it increasingly often in the surreal few weeks since Gabriel was sentenced. In fact, he's thinking about it right now. </p><p>They’re standing on the curb beneath the sparkling lights of the hotel, on a little square of pavement furred with red carpet. Even this is too much exposure. There are passerby loitering, a stone's throw from security, trying to catch a glimpse of Adrien as he ducks his head and pulls up his scarf.</p><p>"There's the car," he whispers. "Come on, let's go."</p><p>They're lucky this time, and nobody snaps a photo. The first time it happened, Nino had been seventeen, and the paper had been forced to take down his pictures. But now he’s nineteen and fair fucking game and a thousand kilometers away from Alya, who would have exposed the editor on Twitter and forced him to issue a groveling apology.</p><p>His pulse only calms once they're in the backseat, and the automated door slams shut behind them, locking itself with a tinny click. </p><p>"I'll never get used to this car," he says. "I keep looking in the front to see who's driving."</p><p>Adrien buckles his seatbelt without looking up.</p><p>"Right? It was weird for me too, the first time I rode with Kagami."</p><p>That's right. Adrien’s ex—the one <em> other </em> person he’s dated—is the only child of millionaires. Her surname is engraved in silver above their plates. Nino’s name isn’t engraved on anything; except perhaps the lock that he'd bought, and then chickened out of hanging on the Pont des Arts.  </p><p>It's dark in the car, but not too dark to see him. Instead of crowding close to him as usual, he's propped against the door, staring out the window.</p><p>"Fun fact," Nino blurts—because he has no idea what he's meant to say, but with Adrien, <em>anything</em> is better than <em>nothing—</em> “—did you know that self-driving cars are like, only dubiously legal?"</p><p>Adrien turns from the window. "Really?"</p><p>As though it can tell that Nino is shit-talking it, the car rumbles and revs its engines. With a gravelly purr, it pulls away from the curb.</p><p>"Yeah, because let's say that a person ran into the road? The car would have to decide whether to keep going and hit that person, or whether to stop and risk the passengers instead. And you can’t ethically program it to choose.”</p><p>“Huh,” says Adrien—and then he frowns, the way he always does when he's thinking.</p><p>Adrien always thinks about what Nino says. Sometimes Nino wishes he wouldn't, because Nino spends a lot of time talking out of his ass in an attempt to distract Adrien from the other things in his life. </p><p>“I’ll ask my aunt. She input the commands on this car.”</p><p>“Your aunt,” he repeats.  Adrien nods, leaning forward. He pokes at a touch screen on the back of the driver’s seat, and it lights up, bathing his face in blue light.</p><p>“Yeah, see, here’s our route.”</p><p>Nino looks at the backlit map and the two red dots that are stamped upon it. One is his student accommodation. The other is the Agreste mansion, a street away from Marinette’s.</p><p>“Cool, but what if we want to go somewhere else?”</p><p>“Oh, uh…I can’t change the route. But I can tell the car to take a detour?” Adrien swipes right on the screen, showing him. “So if you want to stop at a bank, or use a bathroom or something, there’s a list of locations that my aunt picked out in advance.”</p><p>The longer he looks at it, the more his mood sours. Part of him had hoped they’d see more of each other now that Adrien is ostensibly emancipated, but he’s simply exchanged one keeper for another.</p><p>“It’s only eight PM,” he mumbles. “I didn’t know we had to go straight home.”</p><p>“Wasn’t worth staying,” Adrien replies. He settles against the headrest and lets his eyes fall shut. “That party was nowhere near as good as one of yours.” </p><p>Outside, Paris blurs as it passes. Something kicks in Nino’s chest—hot and sharp, a helpless ache.</p><p>Before his better judgment can kick in, he reaches out and slams his palm against the touch screen.</p><p>His hand makes a dull-sounding <em> thunk </em>against the glass. It’s much less dramatic than Nino was hoping for, but the limo cruises to a stop—then takes a hard right and reverses down the street.  Adrien opens his eyes and sits up straight.</p><p>“What’s happening?”</p><p>“We’re detouring,” says Nino. Adrien just blinks.</p><p>“To where?”</p><p>“No idea, but this route is now going to take us—” A swift glance at the screen— “Thirty-four minutes, give or take traffic, so I guess we better find something to do in this car.”</p><p>Adrien’s eyes are green and startled, the slightest bit reflective in the evening dark. He has his thinking expression on again. Nino sighs.</p><p>“I’m flirting, Adrien. I’m saying we should make out.”</p><p>His mouth opens, just a little.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Yeah, <em> oh. </em></p><p>It doesn't matter how long they’re together.  There’ll always be a stutter of disbelief when Adrien leans in for him, just like this—all warm, soft eyes and reddened cheeks. He unbuckles his seatbelt as he goes, and then his hand is on Nino's face, tracing cheek and jaw and chin with the dry, textured pad of his thumb.</p><p>He has a deeply rooted, delirious memory of all the girls who went after Adrien in school. Watching him fall for Kagami, then Marinette. Watching him nurse each heartbreak like a wound; and his own pangs of sympathetic pain, deep deep <em> deep </em>like swallowed nails.</p><p>But that was then, and this is now.</p><p>He's the one who has his hand in Adrien's hair, in the strands that always tangle at the back of his head, no matter how much product he slicks it with. He's the one getting to angle his head <em> just so</em>—kissing him gently at first, and then more deeply. Adrien's hand falls away from Nino's jaw and lands on his knee, fingers spread; a small, perfect handprint of warmth.</p><p>Two points of contact. His hand, and his mouth.</p><p>They break apart a little, and Adrien hovers in front of him. The car is still moving, and some part of him registers things and people passing them by, in and out of the nighttime fog.</p><p>"Is this dangerous?" Adrien mutters. "Is it illegal or something?"</p><p>"Yeah," says Nino, "check this out. I'm illegally unbuckling my seatbelt in your aunt's illegal car, so I can keep making out with my illegally handsome boyfriend."</p><p>Adrien laughs.</p><p>His voice has deepened over the past few years; but his laugh is the same, the sun spilled out as sound, settling deep in Nino's stomach.</p><p>"I'm going to be in such deep shit."</p><p>Nino fumbles out of his seatbelt and shuffles forward across the backseat. It smells unfamiliar—like liquid expense—leather and air freshener and polished chrome. All the more excuse to tug Adrien into his arms and breathe in deep, inhaling his cologne.</p><p>He nips Adrien's neck above the collar of his dress shirt. The pulse there jumps, and he kisses it again; just to feel Adrien snake his arms around his waist and dig his fingers into his back.</p><p>"That's unfair."</p><p>"What?"</p><p>"The way you're doing that."</p><p>He kisses Adrien’s jawline, teasing him a little, watching him turn his head in an attempt to chase his lips.</p><p>When that fails, Adrien presses himself closer, clambering halfway into his lap. With knowledge born from experience, he worms one hand between them and plucks Nino's glasses from the pocket of his vest, to be safely stored in the nearest door.</p><p>With knowledge born from <em> practice</em>, he kisses Nino again, grabbing two handfuls of the back of his suit.</p><p>It's both familiar and addictive—a mouthful of liquor, searing his throat. They’re aglow in the alien lights of the city,  sapphire and gold splintering around them in shards; lending sharp and shining edges to the softness of Adrien's ear and cheek.</p><p>The limo jolts to a halt. They come apart, and Adrien tightens his grip to avoid losing his balance.</p><p>"I guess that's our first stop.”</p><p>"Now what?" says Nino. Adrien makes no move to climb out of his lap.  </p><p>"Now it'll unlock the door so we can get out for a few minutes.”</p><p>"So...should we?”</p><p>"My hair's all messed up."</p><p>"Not the <em> patented </em> Agreste-brand hair."</p><p>He means it as a joke—something that’ll draw out that laugh of his—but Adrien flashes a self-deprecating little smile. "Patented and trademarked, just like the rest of me."</p><p>The ache comes again, sharp and sad, a burning ball inside his chest.</p><p>Sometimes he wishes that Ladybug hadn't vanished. If Wayzz were still with him, then Nino could protect him. The glittering world outside this car should never have been allowed to pick Adrien apart; to demand to take a piece of him, <em> every </em> piece of him, until there was nothing left to scavenge but bones.</p><p>"Your father isn't here anymore," he says. Reaching around behind Adrien’s back, he jabs the touch screen until it registers a response.</p><p>"Fuck him and his brand and his shitty terrorist legacy. You shouldn’t have to think about Gabriel Agreste for a single second, ever again."</p><p>He's said this before, each time earnest as the last. He’s a little worried it’s starting to wear thin. But every time he says some soft, ridiculous thing—<em> I want you </em> or <em> I'm here for you </em> or <em> God, I really love you </em>—Adrien brightens as though he's hearing it for the first time. He keeps this in mind as he lifts his right hand, curling his fingers against Adrien’s cheek.</p><p>"You could move out if you felt like it, or go back to school. Whatever you want, all you have to do is go for it.”</p><p>Adrien doesn't answer, but he turns into the touch.</p><p>Slowly, the car eases back into motion. Light and shadow skim the windows, like dappled sunlight through the branches of trees. The city's gone blue on the other side of the glass—bright lights climbing to an overcast sky. There are pedestrians passing by, turned to gold by the glow of the streetlights, like the beautiful people in the ballroom they’d just left.</p><p>"If I went for it," says Adrien, "do you think that I’d get it?"</p><p>He's got that little smile—those bright, aching eyes. His thumb hovers shyly at the corner of Nino’s mouth, and Nino can’t stand it. <em> Really, </em>he can’t. </p><p>“Seriously?” he says. “I mean your life aspirations and stuff. I don’t mean me, I'm already in the bag."</p><p>Adrien's thumb moves, skimming his lower lip.  He tries not to feel it too intensely, lest his heart collapse inside his chest.</p><p>“Okay, dude, let me clarify the issue. At any given time, I am one <em> second </em> of weakness from putting my tongue inside your mouth. You're my closest friend. You’ve been hot since <em> middle school. </em> I don't know what answer you thought you would get."</p><p>The grin that spreads across Adrien's face could put the nighttime lights to shame.</p><p>“You like me that much?”</p><p>“We're literally dating.”</p><p>“You love me, though. You think I’m hot shit.”</p><p>“Shut up,” says Nino. He lays one hand against Adrien’s chest and pushes gently, easing him out of his lap. Their legs untangle as they slide into their seats, but Adrien’s smirk remains infuriatingly intact.</p><p>“Make me shut up.”</p><p>“Don’t fucking flirt with me using lines you read in fanfiction.”</p><p>But still, he reaches for Adrien’s ring hand and folds it carefully inside his own. And then—for good measure—he leans in to kiss him again. Using the hand on Adrien's chest, he wrests them down towards the cool leather seat, until Adrien hits it on his back.</p><p>Adrien tips his head as far back as it’ll go,  giving him space to deepen the kiss.</p><p>By the time he breaks it off, they’re both out of air. It’s a relief to feel the heat radiating off Adrien's face, because Nino is burning like the surface of the sun.</p><p>“I have another great idea,” he manages after a moment. Propping himself up on the palm of his free hand, he twines their fingers more tightly together.</p><p>“Get out at my stop. Spend the night at my dorm.”</p><p>Adrien stills. Nino is close enough to hear his little exhale—soft in the sliver of space between their faces, warming the filtered air of the car.</p><p>“I mean it,” he murmurs. Despite his certainty in asking, a bubble of nervousness pops inside him. “Forget going back. Come home with me.”</p><p>With that, he stays still and holds his breath—holds it and holds it, waiting for a reply. </p><p>“I’d like that,” says Adrien, after a moment of silence.  “I’d really like if you let me stay.”</p><p>There’s a rush of relief, stronger than Nino expects, and he can’t help the grin that splits his lips. He’s always been good at—how should he describe it? The part that comes <em> after, </em> talking and joking and kissing; comfort and companionship, the part that’s <em> familiar. </em>He’s never been good at taking the first leap. </p><p>Adrien smiles too, infuriatingly infectious. Still pinned to the backseat by the weight of their bodies, he lifts his free hand to the back of Nino’s head.</p><p>“The thing is, we’re still stuck in the car for half an hour.”</p><p>“How do you know that wasn’t my plan all along?”</p><p>“How do you know it wasn’t mine?” </p><p>His fingers lace deeper into Nino's hair—tugging him closer, keeping him near.</p><p>“That’s me, always getting the things that I want. With my excellent flirting, and my excellent lines."</p><p>Nino can’t find air to answer, so he puts his face in his hands and laughs.   </p>
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